


where secrets lie in the border fires

by zombiejosette



Category: Twin Peaks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6872989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiejosette/pseuds/zombiejosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"hey, man, you know you're never coming back."</p>
            </blockquote>





	where secrets lie in the border fires

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr (@slutshaminghamilton) 4/17/2013

Dale can’t pinpoint the exact moment that he knows he’s not coming back (and he does know, as he knows his name and the familiarity of his trenchcoat around him). It’s suddenly a fact, unavoidable and blatant and blinding, weighing down on his shoulders and crushing his mind.

It’s not fear. It isn’t relief (despite the comfort he may take in having the facts - some facts - before him, piece of the puzzle he takes a childlike delight in piecing together), but it isn’t fear; it’s simply a dawning and waiting, and Dale doesn’t lose sleep over it. It’s not desirable and it isn’t idealistic but he’s familiar with the natural flow of things, the pathways and journeys that wind and create the stories of human life; far be it from him to stop it.

He steps into the clearing and that’s it - that’s the peace that comes over him. It’s not warm and pure comfort, but cold and it hits him hard in the pit of his stomach. Unsettling, but peace all the same, calm in a storm, a watchful eye focused on his every footsteps, one he can’t see, but one ever looming above his head. It’s followed him, Dale realizes (Dale knows, as he always has), as this is the natural course of things. It’s more than crossing Laura’s arms above her chest before the funeral, more than warm milk on his desk or the way the owls hoot outside his window at night (he swears), more than a chessboard or the way his stomach twists and his legs go numb for Annie (though she’s there now and it isn’t her game, he knows).

It’s the curtains that he can see, a sliver, a tease beyond the trees. It’s the pattern on the floor, the black and white that dizzies him. It’s the darkness and the fire and the vivid red and _Dale can’t pinpoint the exact moment he knows he’s not coming back_ , but it never mattered.


End file.
